Butler, H.C. 1913a “Ancient Architecture,” Pp. 149-213 in Syria. Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria (Div. II, Part 3, Umm Idj-Djimal, Leyden) 149-213.
ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE IN SYRIA
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Butler, H.C. 1913a “Ancient Architecture,” Pp. 149-213 in Syria. Publications of the
Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria (Div. II, Part 3, Umm
Idj-Djimal, Leyden) 149-213.
Expeditions to Syria in 1904-1905 and 1909
DIVISION II
HOWARD CROSBY BUTLER
LEYDEN - I9I3.
- Printed by E. J. BRILL, - LEYDEN (Holland).
Abbreviations of Periodicals and Publications Frequently Mentioned.
A. A. E. S. Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899- 1900, 1, II, III, IV.
A. ]. A. Atlw-ican Journal of Arcltaeology. Ann. Ep . DAnnee Epigrapltique. B. C. :kI. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellinique. C. 1. G. Corpus Inscl-iptiolZum Graecaru11l. C. 1. L. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinaru17Z. C. 1. S. Corpus Imcription1mz Semiticarutlt. S. C. Marquis de Vogue; La Syrie Cen t1-a Ie, Architecture
,Civile et Religieuse. G. G. A. Gottingische Geleil1'te Ameigen. H. Hermes. 1. G. R. Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas pertinentes. 1. S. O. G. Dittenberger: Orientis Graed Inscriptiones Se-
lectae. ]. A. Journal Asiatique. J. K. D. A. I. Jahrbuch des Kaiserliclt Deutschen Archao
logisclun Instituts. ]. K. P. K. Jalzrbuclt tier Koniglielt Preuszischen Kunst
sam 111 ltmgell.
K. A. Strzygowski; Klein-Asien, ein Neuland der Kunst geschichte.
M. N. D. P.-V. Mittheilungen 2md Nachrichten des Deut schen Palastina- Vel-eins.
M. S. M. Dussaud and Mader; Mission dans les regions desertiques de la Syrie moyenne.
P. A. Brunnow; Provincia Arabia. P. E. F. Quartedy ,Statement of tlte Palestine Exploration
Fund. P. M. Guy Ie Strange; Palestine under the Moslems. P. R. G. S. Proceedings of tlte Royal Geographieal Society. R. A. Revue Arclziologique. R. A. O. Clermont-Ganneau; Recueil d'Arclleologie Orientale. R. B. Revue Biblique. S. E. P. Conder; Survey oj Eastern Palestine. V. A. S. Dussaud; Voyage Archiologique au Safa. Z. G. E. Zeitscltrift del' Gesellscltaft fur Erdkunde zu Bedin. Z. D. M. G. Zeitschrift del' Deutschen Morgenlandischen
Gesellsclurft. Z. D. P.-V. Zeitscltrift des Deutschen Palastina- Vereins.
Explanation of Ground Plans.
SCALE: 0.0025 M. = 1 M. except when otherwise indicated on the plan.
Walls standing to a height of 2 M. or more.
Fallen walls, or foundations.
Conjectured walls.
" less than 2 M.
rl B Bases in situ, arch fallen.
1[::::'--:". •.. ::. ,:r:::':T - r:;r: u IZI @
Arch in situ.
" " fallen
Pavement.
Tunnel-vault.
Explanation of Elevations and Sections.
SCALE: 0.005 M. I M. except when otherwise indicated in the drawings.
o Conjectured. Limestone.
Basalt. Brick.
SCALE OF DETAILS: 5 cm. I M. except when some other scale is given in drawing,
NOTE. It has not been possible to carry the above scheme into effect with absolute consistency; but it has been
applied in a large majority of the drawings. Departures from the scheme are made clear by the text.
'" UMM IDJ-DJIMAL
AND SURROUNDINGS
t.1ANUARV. 1905
SCALE - le .... - 60ID.
C To,..b f) BIrMl> _ M.u.r_ B td.go. Dou.t.u .... oI! R
.jQ o TOMEI Of!' 01i\ELD08
'"HOI 111·1'"
UMM IDJ-DJIMAL.
72. UMM IDJ-DJIMAL (THANTIA?) Far out in the desert, in the midst of a rolling plain , beside the dry bed of an
ancient stream, there is a deserted city. The plain about it is not a waste of sand , its surface is composed of dry and exhausted soil, overgrown with grey lichen , thinly sprinkled with parched desert plants, and strewn with rounded bits of black basalt, from the size of an egg to the size of a man's head, which are no longer black, as they were when the peasant's plough-share turned them over from time to time; for
Ill. 130. Ruins of Umm idj-Djima.l. View from the Southeast.
the desert mosses have covered them with a lace-work of white and grey, so disguising their real nature as to have led one traveller, at least, to mistake the plain for a bed of limestone. The walls of the ancient deserted city, its half-ruined gates, the towers and arches of its churches , the two and three-storey walls of its mansions, all of basalt, rise black and forbidding from the grey of the plain . Many of the buildings have fallen in ruins, but many others preserve their ancient form in such wonderful completeness, that, to the traveller approaching them from across the plain (Ill . 1 30), or viewing them with the aid of a field glass from the nearer crests of the Djebel I:Iauran, the
Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria, Div. II, Sec. A, Pt. 3. 20
Di vision II Section A Part 3
deserted ruin appears like a living city, all of black, rising from a grey-white sea. This ancient ruined city has long been called by the Arabs U mm idj-Djimal, which, being translated, is "Mother of Camels" . Certain Bible scholars have tried to identify the place with Beth Gamul of the Old Testament.1 It is not definitely known what the city was called in Roman and early Christian times; but " Mother of Camels" it is now, and no name could fit it better, especially in the springtime when the Bedawin, with hundreds of breeding camels, pitch their tents around the walls of the city, and the new-born camels are sheltered within the ruins against the winds that blow from Hermon's snow-capped peak.
U mm idj-Djimal was the central city, and the metropolis , of the once thickly settled region that lies south of the Djebel Ijauran, and which is styled in these pub lications, the Southern Ijauran. It was certainly one of the largest, if not by all
means the largest, of' the cities of the Roman province of Arabia, south of Bostra and east of Philadelphia. The line betwixt Syria and Arabia today is not very definitely drawn in this locality; but, if Syria is taken to be part of the Turkish Empire, and Arabia to be the independent country inhabited solely by the Bedawin, and free from garrisons , soldiers, taxes and other features of Imperial government, then this is Arabia still , as it was in the days when it was ruled from Rome and Byzantium. As it stands today, with all its monuments of the past still recognizable, it is the pre Islamic Christian Arabic city par excellence, practically untouched by Roman or Greek influence, and unchanged by the stream of Islam that swept by it .
This ancient site is not difficult of access for those prepared for desert travel and willing to entrust their safety to the Bedawin; but the lack of water places restrictions upon camping among its ruins. A number of explorers have reached Umm idj-Djimal for a few hours at a time ; but no Europeans had encamped on the spot until January 1 905 when the Princeton Expedition pitched its tents beside the old fortress for two weeks, and were followed, later in the same winter, by Miss Gertrude Lowthian Bell2 who spent a night in camp among the ruins. Neither party suffered the slightest in convenIence from the Bedawin, although travelling without the usual Turkish guard. The Arabs who were encamped there when the Princeton Expedition arrived, pointed out to our muleteers a small pool of water about two miles west of the ruins, and left the place quietly next day , saying there was not sufficient water for them and for us too. Indeed I may add that unusually heavy falls of snow upon the mountains of the I:Iauran, and unwonted showers in the plain, made the winter of 1 904-1 905 a singularly opportune season for exploration in this region. I was told by Bedawin shepherds that the supply of water was more plentiful there than it had been within their memory, and I could well believe it when I returned to this locality in 1 909 . During two weeks of uninterrupted work, we were able thoroughly to explore the ruins. A survey of the ancient city was made by Mr. Norris, in which the lines of the walls and all the n10re important buildings within them, and a church and many tombs out side the walls, were located. As a result, two maps are presented herewith, Map No. I, which shows the city and its immediate surroundings, and Map No. 2 which gives the city itself on a much larger scale, and many of its buildings drawn to scale. The ground plans of a large number of buildings were carefully measured, and these have
t Jer. XLVIII, 23. 2 The Desert and the Sown, p. 73-77 .
Umm idj-Djimal ( Tha1Ztz"a ?)
bee.p inserted in the larger map. A large collection of photographs was taken, and measurements were secured for the publication, and presentation in detail, of over thirty buildings. Including the 2 9 inscriptions in Greek and Latin, and the 3 inscriptions in Nabataean that had been copied and published by former explorers, the Princeton Expedition gathered 5 Latin, 276 Greek, 3 I Nabataean, I pre-Islamic Arabic and 13 Safa'itic inscriptions, which appear in Div. III, A, 3 and Div. IV, Sects. A and c, res pecti vel y .
U mm idj-Djimal was probably the great city of the desert described by the Arabs to some of the earliest travellers in the J:Iauran. It was first reached in 1 857 by Cyril Graham 1 who published a brief description of the ruins in the following year. In 1 86 1 -6 2 W. H. Waddington 2 copied several inscriptions here, and, over a decade later, in 1 875-76, Charles M. Doughty 3 passed through the ruined city. At about the same time Selah Merrill 4, then American Consul at Jerusalem, visited the site, and, the year after, in 1 877, William M. Thomson 5 reached it. It was not until thirteen years later, in 1 890, that Heinrich Frauberger 6 came to U mm idj-Djimal ; he was followed in 1 893 by G. Robinson Lees 7 who has recently published anew the account of his journey in Southern Bashan. The first plans to be published of buildings in the ancient city were those of one church and of one of the city gates made by G. Schu macher 8 in 1 894, and published with descriptive notes the following year. In 1 90 I Rene Dussaud 9 and Frederic Macler made a hasty excursion to the place, and copied several inscriptions ; the Princeton Expedition followed in 1 905, and Miss Bell conlpleted the list of visitors in the same year.
It will be noted at the head of this chapter, that Than tz"a , with an interrogation mark, appears as the ancient name of Umm idj-Djimal. My reasons for this tentative identification are given in an appendix 10, devoted to a description of the section of Trajan's great road between Bostra and Philadelphia, which I prepared for Div. III, Sect. A., Part 2. They need not be repeated here further than to say that the identi fication is based upon a new interpretation of the reading of the number of miles given from point to point in Roman numerals on the Tabula Peutingeriana, which are not easily reconciled with the actual figures which appear upon the milestones that are still
in place on Trajan's road ; further evidence being deduced from the or.der in which the name Thainatha, i.e. Thantz"a of Peutinger's map, appears in the Notz"tia Digni tatum. A suggestion is perhaps to be found in an inscription discovered at Umm idj Djimal by the Expedition of 1 909, which mentions the a(jAEu 8avo1)Y}vwv; it is the Greek half of a N abataean-Greek bilingual 11. Considering the two variants of the form of the name which appear on the ancient map and in the Nolitia, it is not surprising that both should differ slightly from the N abataean original and its Greek transliteration.
1 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, ' 58 (XX-VIII) pp. 226-263. 2 Wadd. inscs. 2057a-2068, nnd de Vogiie, La Syrie Centrale, Inscriptions Simitiques, Paris, 1 868-77, pp. 1 20-1 23. 3· Travels in Arabia Deserta, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1 883, Vol. I, p. 1 1 . Q.S. '76, pp. 5 I-5 5, East of Jordan, New-York, Scribner, 1 883, (new ed.) p. 86. 5 The Land and the Book (3 vols.), London, Nelson, 1 88 1-1 886, p. 509. 6 Globus, '93 (LXIII) pp. 1 0- 1 3 and 1 67-1 72 . 7 Geog. Journ. '95 , pp. 1-26, Life and Adventures beyond Jordan, New-York, Appletons, 1909, pp. 263-267.
8 M.N.D.P.-V. '95 (I) pp. 3 3-3 5 . Z.D.P.-V. '97 (xx) pp. 65-227 .
9 M.S.M. pp. (608; 682), 438. 10 III, A , 2, p. XIV. 11 Published by Dr. Littmann in Florilegium Melchior de Vogue, p. 76. III, A, 3 insc. 2 3 81.
Division II Section A Part 3
EXTENT AND CONDITION OF THE RUINS. The ruins of the city itself cover an irre gular space over 800 m. long, and from 300 to Sao m. wide (see Map No. I) all enclosed by a wall built at different periods and now in varying states of dilapidation. On all sides of the city, to a distance of Sao m. from the walls, are the ruins of large built tombs. All along the west side of the ruins, about 200 m. distant, is the dry and nameless wadi in which the ruins of a bridge lie about opposite the middle of the west wall, and where the ruins of a masonry dam are to be seen about 400 meters to the northwest of the city . From this dam the remains of an aqueduct can be traced to the northwest angle of the city wall, along its north wall, and by the whole length
of the east wall. The main aqueduct, which lies just below the surface throughout the greater part of its length, was tapped at several points by branch aqueducts that carried the water into reservoirs in different parts of the city. From the west gate the remains of a built road are traceable, leading north of west, in the direction of I>-ar il-Baci1$:, as is shown on Map No. I.
Within the walls there is a broad open space, like an irregularly shaped common, which extends from the main west gate southward, a little to the west of the main axis of the city, as far as the south wall. This open space is interrupted only by three or four single buildings, of public character ; but it is surrounded by close set ranks of buildings of all kinds, between which open the narrow streets, leading east and west to the outer walls of the city. All the space between the open common and the walls is filled with confused masses of ruins. Many buildings are in a remarkable state of preservation, others are more or less destroyed, but the great mass of buildings, con sisting naturally of private houses, have been completely destroyed. It was possible to measure the ground plans of all of the public buildings, the churches, the barracks, the government house, etc ., and a large number of the private residences of different classes, and to secure data for making elevations, sections, and restorations of buildings of almost every one of these varieties. In Map No. I the buildings that were mea sured are shaded grey, and the groups of private houses, are numbered by Roman numerals, the groups of which only the outlines were measured are left white; and it will be seen that there still remain large areas within the walls that have been left blank in the map. These are strewn with ruins most of which are too completely destroyed for the making of satisfactory ground plans, yet I have no doubt that later explorers could add much to the detail of the map by tracing the walls of ruined houses among the masses of debris . Map No. 2 gives the plan of the greater part of the city on a larger scale, with all the buildings that were measured by the Princeton Expedition, drawn to scale. Many of these buildings will appear separately on still larger scale, with sections and restorations ; but a large number of the private houses shown here are hardly of sufficient importance to require individual presentation, and only such as represent a particular class, or have some feature of special interest, will
receive separate attention in this Part. The ruins preserve ample remains for the study and restoration of the city walls
and gates, the reservoirs and aqueduct, a temple and details of the Nabataean period, churches of three different centuries, houses that probably represent every century from the first to the seventh, and tombs of every period from the time of the Nabataean settle ment to the fall of the Christian city. Thus, we have a sufficient variety of buildings, and a long enough period of building activity, to render possible not only a recon-
Umm idj-Djimal ( Thant-ia ?) 1 53
struction of the historical development of architecture in this ancient city, but a resto ration of an important Christian Arabic centre of civilization at the end of the sixth
century. THE BUILDINGS. The architectural forms illustrated in the ruins of Umm idj.Djiml,
i .e. the ground plans, the construction of the superstructures of the buildings, and their ornament, present something more than the common types that are familiar to us in the numerous towns of the J:Iauran, and that are described in a general way in the introduction to II, A, 2. It has been said by more than one of the earlier visitors to this ruined city that the style of the architecture is typically J:Iauranian, and this is true of the general principles of construction employed in its buildings. The girder arch, the corbel courses, and roofing slabs, all the principal details and constructive principles that were developed in the purely lithic architecture in' basalt throughout Southern Syria, are exemplified in an hundred different buildings here ; but there are to be observed, at the same time, a num ber of features, important in construction and significant in ornament, which are not common in the architecture of the ljauran, when viewed as a whole, and which add interest to the style as it was expressed in this Arabic metropolis. Taken up in chronological order these peculiarities appear first in the architecture of the N abataean period of which the remains are scanty at best, but sufficient for comparative purposes. Nothing new or unexpected is found in the matter of plan, and the actual stonework shows the same beauty and skillful workmanship that are to be seen in other centres of N abataean influence ; but the ornamental details are plain in the extreme, severe indeed in comparison with those rich decorations which
are most characteristic of Nabataean architecture in other parts of the ljauran. The mouldings are flat and simple in profile, and always without carved enrichments. The four-pointed capital with its exaggerated abacus and depressed echinus, seen at Petra, Bora and st, is here ; but the foliate capital is entirely wanting.
The few buildings of the Roman period that remain show none of the elaborate ornamental features that are most expressive of the Imperial architecture in the northern parts of the Province, and the scattered details of Roman buildings that perished during the early Christian period show only delicate and complex moulded surfaces, but no carving of any kind.
The churches present a far greater variety of ground plans and superstructures than can be found in any other part of the ljauran. The most typical of all the church forms in the ljauran, i.e . the three-aisled basilica with transverse…
Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria (Div. II, Part 3, Umm
Idj-Djimal, Leyden) 149-213.
Expeditions to Syria in 1904-1905 and 1909
DIVISION II
HOWARD CROSBY BUTLER
LEYDEN - I9I3.
- Printed by E. J. BRILL, - LEYDEN (Holland).
Abbreviations of Periodicals and Publications Frequently Mentioned.
A. A. E. S. Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899- 1900, 1, II, III, IV.
A. ]. A. Atlw-ican Journal of Arcltaeology. Ann. Ep . DAnnee Epigrapltique. B. C. :kI. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellinique. C. 1. G. Corpus Inscl-iptiolZum Graecaru11l. C. 1. L. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinaru17Z. C. 1. S. Corpus Imcription1mz Semiticarutlt. S. C. Marquis de Vogue; La Syrie Cen t1-a Ie, Architecture
,Civile et Religieuse. G. G. A. Gottingische Geleil1'te Ameigen. H. Hermes. 1. G. R. Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas pertinentes. 1. S. O. G. Dittenberger: Orientis Graed Inscriptiones Se-
lectae. ]. A. Journal Asiatique. J. K. D. A. I. Jahrbuch des Kaiserliclt Deutschen Archao
logisclun Instituts. ]. K. P. K. Jalzrbuclt tier Koniglielt Preuszischen Kunst
sam 111 ltmgell.
K. A. Strzygowski; Klein-Asien, ein Neuland der Kunst geschichte.
M. N. D. P.-V. Mittheilungen 2md Nachrichten des Deut schen Palastina- Vel-eins.
M. S. M. Dussaud and Mader; Mission dans les regions desertiques de la Syrie moyenne.
P. A. Brunnow; Provincia Arabia. P. E. F. Quartedy ,Statement of tlte Palestine Exploration
Fund. P. M. Guy Ie Strange; Palestine under the Moslems. P. R. G. S. Proceedings of tlte Royal Geographieal Society. R. A. Revue Arclziologique. R. A. O. Clermont-Ganneau; Recueil d'Arclleologie Orientale. R. B. Revue Biblique. S. E. P. Conder; Survey oj Eastern Palestine. V. A. S. Dussaud; Voyage Archiologique au Safa. Z. G. E. Zeitscltrift del' Gesellscltaft fur Erdkunde zu Bedin. Z. D. M. G. Zeitschrift del' Deutschen Morgenlandischen
Gesellsclurft. Z. D. P.-V. Zeitscltrift des Deutschen Palastina- Vereins.
Explanation of Ground Plans.
SCALE: 0.0025 M. = 1 M. except when otherwise indicated on the plan.
Walls standing to a height of 2 M. or more.
Fallen walls, or foundations.
Conjectured walls.
" less than 2 M.
rl B Bases in situ, arch fallen.
1[::::'--:". •.. ::. ,:r:::':T - r:;r: u IZI @
Arch in situ.
" " fallen
Pavement.
Tunnel-vault.
Explanation of Elevations and Sections.
SCALE: 0.005 M. I M. except when otherwise indicated in the drawings.
o Conjectured. Limestone.
Basalt. Brick.
SCALE OF DETAILS: 5 cm. I M. except when some other scale is given in drawing,
NOTE. It has not been possible to carry the above scheme into effect with absolute consistency; but it has been
applied in a large majority of the drawings. Departures from the scheme are made clear by the text.
'" UMM IDJ-DJIMAL
AND SURROUNDINGS
t.1ANUARV. 1905
SCALE - le .... - 60ID.
C To,..b f) BIrMl> _ M.u.r_ B td.go. Dou.t.u .... oI! R
.jQ o TOMEI Of!' 01i\ELD08
'"HOI 111·1'"
UMM IDJ-DJIMAL.
72. UMM IDJ-DJIMAL (THANTIA?) Far out in the desert, in the midst of a rolling plain , beside the dry bed of an
ancient stream, there is a deserted city. The plain about it is not a waste of sand , its surface is composed of dry and exhausted soil, overgrown with grey lichen , thinly sprinkled with parched desert plants, and strewn with rounded bits of black basalt, from the size of an egg to the size of a man's head, which are no longer black, as they were when the peasant's plough-share turned them over from time to time; for
Ill. 130. Ruins of Umm idj-Djima.l. View from the Southeast.
the desert mosses have covered them with a lace-work of white and grey, so disguising their real nature as to have led one traveller, at least, to mistake the plain for a bed of limestone. The walls of the ancient deserted city, its half-ruined gates, the towers and arches of its churches , the two and three-storey walls of its mansions, all of basalt, rise black and forbidding from the grey of the plain . Many of the buildings have fallen in ruins, but many others preserve their ancient form in such wonderful completeness, that, to the traveller approaching them from across the plain (Ill . 1 30), or viewing them with the aid of a field glass from the nearer crests of the Djebel I:Iauran, the
Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria, Div. II, Sec. A, Pt. 3. 20
Di vision II Section A Part 3
deserted ruin appears like a living city, all of black, rising from a grey-white sea. This ancient ruined city has long been called by the Arabs U mm idj-Djimal, which, being translated, is "Mother of Camels" . Certain Bible scholars have tried to identify the place with Beth Gamul of the Old Testament.1 It is not definitely known what the city was called in Roman and early Christian times; but " Mother of Camels" it is now, and no name could fit it better, especially in the springtime when the Bedawin, with hundreds of breeding camels, pitch their tents around the walls of the city, and the new-born camels are sheltered within the ruins against the winds that blow from Hermon's snow-capped peak.
U mm idj-Djimal was the central city, and the metropolis , of the once thickly settled region that lies south of the Djebel Ijauran, and which is styled in these pub lications, the Southern Ijauran. It was certainly one of the largest, if not by all
means the largest, of' the cities of the Roman province of Arabia, south of Bostra and east of Philadelphia. The line betwixt Syria and Arabia today is not very definitely drawn in this locality; but, if Syria is taken to be part of the Turkish Empire, and Arabia to be the independent country inhabited solely by the Bedawin, and free from garrisons , soldiers, taxes and other features of Imperial government, then this is Arabia still , as it was in the days when it was ruled from Rome and Byzantium. As it stands today, with all its monuments of the past still recognizable, it is the pre Islamic Christian Arabic city par excellence, practically untouched by Roman or Greek influence, and unchanged by the stream of Islam that swept by it .
This ancient site is not difficult of access for those prepared for desert travel and willing to entrust their safety to the Bedawin; but the lack of water places restrictions upon camping among its ruins. A number of explorers have reached Umm idj-Djimal for a few hours at a time ; but no Europeans had encamped on the spot until January 1 905 when the Princeton Expedition pitched its tents beside the old fortress for two weeks, and were followed, later in the same winter, by Miss Gertrude Lowthian Bell2 who spent a night in camp among the ruins. Neither party suffered the slightest in convenIence from the Bedawin, although travelling without the usual Turkish guard. The Arabs who were encamped there when the Princeton Expedition arrived, pointed out to our muleteers a small pool of water about two miles west of the ruins, and left the place quietly next day , saying there was not sufficient water for them and for us too. Indeed I may add that unusually heavy falls of snow upon the mountains of the I:Iauran, and unwonted showers in the plain, made the winter of 1 904-1 905 a singularly opportune season for exploration in this region. I was told by Bedawin shepherds that the supply of water was more plentiful there than it had been within their memory, and I could well believe it when I returned to this locality in 1 909 . During two weeks of uninterrupted work, we were able thoroughly to explore the ruins. A survey of the ancient city was made by Mr. Norris, in which the lines of the walls and all the n10re important buildings within them, and a church and many tombs out side the walls, were located. As a result, two maps are presented herewith, Map No. I, which shows the city and its immediate surroundings, and Map No. 2 which gives the city itself on a much larger scale, and many of its buildings drawn to scale. The ground plans of a large number of buildings were carefully measured, and these have
t Jer. XLVIII, 23. 2 The Desert and the Sown, p. 73-77 .
Umm idj-Djimal ( Tha1Ztz"a ?)
bee.p inserted in the larger map. A large collection of photographs was taken, and measurements were secured for the publication, and presentation in detail, of over thirty buildings. Including the 2 9 inscriptions in Greek and Latin, and the 3 inscriptions in Nabataean that had been copied and published by former explorers, the Princeton Expedition gathered 5 Latin, 276 Greek, 3 I Nabataean, I pre-Islamic Arabic and 13 Safa'itic inscriptions, which appear in Div. III, A, 3 and Div. IV, Sects. A and c, res pecti vel y .
U mm idj-Djimal was probably the great city of the desert described by the Arabs to some of the earliest travellers in the J:Iauran. It was first reached in 1 857 by Cyril Graham 1 who published a brief description of the ruins in the following year. In 1 86 1 -6 2 W. H. Waddington 2 copied several inscriptions here, and, over a decade later, in 1 875-76, Charles M. Doughty 3 passed through the ruined city. At about the same time Selah Merrill 4, then American Consul at Jerusalem, visited the site, and, the year after, in 1 877, William M. Thomson 5 reached it. It was not until thirteen years later, in 1 890, that Heinrich Frauberger 6 came to U mm idj-Djimal ; he was followed in 1 893 by G. Robinson Lees 7 who has recently published anew the account of his journey in Southern Bashan. The first plans to be published of buildings in the ancient city were those of one church and of one of the city gates made by G. Schu macher 8 in 1 894, and published with descriptive notes the following year. In 1 90 I Rene Dussaud 9 and Frederic Macler made a hasty excursion to the place, and copied several inscriptions ; the Princeton Expedition followed in 1 905, and Miss Bell conlpleted the list of visitors in the same year.
It will be noted at the head of this chapter, that Than tz"a , with an interrogation mark, appears as the ancient name of Umm idj-Djimal. My reasons for this tentative identification are given in an appendix 10, devoted to a description of the section of Trajan's great road between Bostra and Philadelphia, which I prepared for Div. III, Sect. A., Part 2. They need not be repeated here further than to say that the identi fication is based upon a new interpretation of the reading of the number of miles given from point to point in Roman numerals on the Tabula Peutingeriana, which are not easily reconciled with the actual figures which appear upon the milestones that are still
in place on Trajan's road ; further evidence being deduced from the or.der in which the name Thainatha, i.e. Thantz"a of Peutinger's map, appears in the Notz"tia Digni tatum. A suggestion is perhaps to be found in an inscription discovered at Umm idj Djimal by the Expedition of 1 909, which mentions the a(jAEu 8avo1)Y}vwv; it is the Greek half of a N abataean-Greek bilingual 11. Considering the two variants of the form of the name which appear on the ancient map and in the Nolitia, it is not surprising that both should differ slightly from the N abataean original and its Greek transliteration.
1 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, ' 58 (XX-VIII) pp. 226-263. 2 Wadd. inscs. 2057a-2068, nnd de Vogiie, La Syrie Centrale, Inscriptions Simitiques, Paris, 1 868-77, pp. 1 20-1 23. 3· Travels in Arabia Deserta, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1 883, Vol. I, p. 1 1 . Q.S. '76, pp. 5 I-5 5, East of Jordan, New-York, Scribner, 1 883, (new ed.) p. 86. 5 The Land and the Book (3 vols.), London, Nelson, 1 88 1-1 886, p. 509. 6 Globus, '93 (LXIII) pp. 1 0- 1 3 and 1 67-1 72 . 7 Geog. Journ. '95 , pp. 1-26, Life and Adventures beyond Jordan, New-York, Appletons, 1909, pp. 263-267.
8 M.N.D.P.-V. '95 (I) pp. 3 3-3 5 . Z.D.P.-V. '97 (xx) pp. 65-227 .
9 M.S.M. pp. (608; 682), 438. 10 III, A , 2, p. XIV. 11 Published by Dr. Littmann in Florilegium Melchior de Vogue, p. 76. III, A, 3 insc. 2 3 81.
Division II Section A Part 3
EXTENT AND CONDITION OF THE RUINS. The ruins of the city itself cover an irre gular space over 800 m. long, and from 300 to Sao m. wide (see Map No. I) all enclosed by a wall built at different periods and now in varying states of dilapidation. On all sides of the city, to a distance of Sao m. from the walls, are the ruins of large built tombs. All along the west side of the ruins, about 200 m. distant, is the dry and nameless wadi in which the ruins of a bridge lie about opposite the middle of the west wall, and where the ruins of a masonry dam are to be seen about 400 meters to the northwest of the city . From this dam the remains of an aqueduct can be traced to the northwest angle of the city wall, along its north wall, and by the whole length
of the east wall. The main aqueduct, which lies just below the surface throughout the greater part of its length, was tapped at several points by branch aqueducts that carried the water into reservoirs in different parts of the city. From the west gate the remains of a built road are traceable, leading north of west, in the direction of I>-ar il-Baci1$:, as is shown on Map No. I.
Within the walls there is a broad open space, like an irregularly shaped common, which extends from the main west gate southward, a little to the west of the main axis of the city, as far as the south wall. This open space is interrupted only by three or four single buildings, of public character ; but it is surrounded by close set ranks of buildings of all kinds, between which open the narrow streets, leading east and west to the outer walls of the city. All the space between the open common and the walls is filled with confused masses of ruins. Many buildings are in a remarkable state of preservation, others are more or less destroyed, but the great mass of buildings, con sisting naturally of private houses, have been completely destroyed. It was possible to measure the ground plans of all of the public buildings, the churches, the barracks, the government house, etc ., and a large number of the private residences of different classes, and to secure data for making elevations, sections, and restorations of buildings of almost every one of these varieties. In Map No. I the buildings that were mea sured are shaded grey, and the groups of private houses, are numbered by Roman numerals, the groups of which only the outlines were measured are left white; and it will be seen that there still remain large areas within the walls that have been left blank in the map. These are strewn with ruins most of which are too completely destroyed for the making of satisfactory ground plans, yet I have no doubt that later explorers could add much to the detail of the map by tracing the walls of ruined houses among the masses of debris . Map No. 2 gives the plan of the greater part of the city on a larger scale, with all the buildings that were measured by the Princeton Expedition, drawn to scale. Many of these buildings will appear separately on still larger scale, with sections and restorations ; but a large number of the private houses shown here are hardly of sufficient importance to require individual presentation, and only such as represent a particular class, or have some feature of special interest, will
receive separate attention in this Part. The ruins preserve ample remains for the study and restoration of the city walls
and gates, the reservoirs and aqueduct, a temple and details of the Nabataean period, churches of three different centuries, houses that probably represent every century from the first to the seventh, and tombs of every period from the time of the Nabataean settle ment to the fall of the Christian city. Thus, we have a sufficient variety of buildings, and a long enough period of building activity, to render possible not only a recon-
Umm idj-Djimal ( Thant-ia ?) 1 53
struction of the historical development of architecture in this ancient city, but a resto ration of an important Christian Arabic centre of civilization at the end of the sixth
century. THE BUILDINGS. The architectural forms illustrated in the ruins of Umm idj.Djiml,
i .e. the ground plans, the construction of the superstructures of the buildings, and their ornament, present something more than the common types that are familiar to us in the numerous towns of the J:Iauran, and that are described in a general way in the introduction to II, A, 2. It has been said by more than one of the earlier visitors to this ruined city that the style of the architecture is typically J:Iauranian, and this is true of the general principles of construction employed in its buildings. The girder arch, the corbel courses, and roofing slabs, all the principal details and constructive principles that were developed in the purely lithic architecture in' basalt throughout Southern Syria, are exemplified in an hundred different buildings here ; but there are to be observed, at the same time, a num ber of features, important in construction and significant in ornament, which are not common in the architecture of the ljauran, when viewed as a whole, and which add interest to the style as it was expressed in this Arabic metropolis. Taken up in chronological order these peculiarities appear first in the architecture of the N abataean period of which the remains are scanty at best, but sufficient for comparative purposes. Nothing new or unexpected is found in the matter of plan, and the actual stonework shows the same beauty and skillful workmanship that are to be seen in other centres of N abataean influence ; but the ornamental details are plain in the extreme, severe indeed in comparison with those rich decorations which
are most characteristic of Nabataean architecture in other parts of the ljauran. The mouldings are flat and simple in profile, and always without carved enrichments. The four-pointed capital with its exaggerated abacus and depressed echinus, seen at Petra, Bora and st, is here ; but the foliate capital is entirely wanting.
The few buildings of the Roman period that remain show none of the elaborate ornamental features that are most expressive of the Imperial architecture in the northern parts of the Province, and the scattered details of Roman buildings that perished during the early Christian period show only delicate and complex moulded surfaces, but no carving of any kind.
The churches present a far greater variety of ground plans and superstructures than can be found in any other part of the ljauran. The most typical of all the church forms in the ljauran, i.e . the three-aisled basilica with transverse…
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